Downward Earnings Mobility after Voluntary Employer Exits

A tacit assumption in much sociological scholarship on mobility that upward earnings mobility is the primary goal of American workers obscures the full range of mobility events. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for 1983 to 1992, this research demonstrates that voluntary downward earnings mobility is an important alternative path to the ideal of upward mobility in the United States. A model is developed of the determinants of voluntary downward earning mobility: Individuals trade pay as they are pushed out of jobs and pulled to new jobs by nonpecuniary factors valued more than pay. The model is largely supported.